2. pc-audio
  3. 1176955471

Feel let down by your audio software choice?

4 years ago when I started ripping my CD collection to a bunch of WAV files onto my hard drives, I researched the options carefully. I chose MusicMatch, which at the time was consistently one of the best-rated jukebox software. Indeed, I find it continues to organize my collection well, and I love the Audio DJ feature.

Unfortunately, MusicMatch is no longer supported. Supposedly it's going to be integrated with Yahoo's product (which I find much inferior). The alternative, iTunes, I use on my Mac but it, too, lacks some of the features that I would want in a music management software.

And, of course, now I have WAV files that MusicMatch organizes well, but iTunes has a limited ability to read the metadata (tags) in those files, which make them difficult to port over to iTunes. To complicate matters, Slim Devices Squeezebox does not support MusicMatch.

What I really want is a product that allows for easy management of large amount of (potentially uncompressed) music data, that can have pieces of that full collection selectively (and automatically) exported to different "libraries" in a compressed format for synchronization with one or more portable players. Is it that hard for the industry to see that there's a niche for that kind of product?

I just feel let down by the leading software in music management.

Michael
sufentanil

Showing 4 responses by sufentanil

sufentanil's avatar
sufentanil OP
782 posts
 
Thanks Ed, I've been looking into a couple of those programs. Media Monkey actually appears to do a lot of what I need, because it can read MusicMatch's tagged WAV files (consistently), and offers reasonable help with viewing by file and exporting to FLAC (which I believe is the optimal format right now for lossless data storage).

My original point is that we have the technology to inexpensively store the equivalent of thousands of CD's and DVD's and digital photographs. What we need is better software for truly managing and easily retrieving the information, as well as extracting pieces of it to send to one or more portable players, and to allow creating archives of the data as a backup. (Aperture does this very cleanly on the digital photography side with vaults.)

I run all major operating systems in my house (Linux, Mac OS 10.4, and Win XP), so I am open to software running in any of those OS's.

Michael
sufentanil's avatar
sufentanil OP
782 posts
 
Various programs (MusicMatch included) have ways of tagging WAV files, but they're inconsistent and not well standardized.

Funny someone should mention Media Monkey. I've played around with about 6 "lesser known" applications, and so far Media Monkey is my favorite. I'm going to be using it to reorganize my collection into FLAC files on my Linux server, so that a Squeezebox can subsequently use those files.

Even though Media Monkey seems closer to the ideal than some of the other choices, I still feel that we still have a ways to go in terms of audio file management software. What I want is an application that will do for audio files what Aperture does for digital photographs.

Michael
sufentanil's avatar
sufentanil OP
782 posts
 
Thanks for the suggestion, bigamp. I haven't tried JRiver MediaCenter yet, so I'll have to give it a try. I'm presently using MediaMonkey in a process of reorganizing my data files into a directory structure and lossless format that I believe will be more universally usable by other software.

Michael
sufentanil's avatar
sufentanil OP
782 posts
 
It's been exactly one month since I started this thread, so I thought I'd provide an update. Thanks in large part to MediaMonkey, I now have achieved in digital audio what I've been searching for about 4 years now. I took my collection of WAV files, placed them into an organized directory structure (very difficult considering most of my collection is classical), converted them to FLAC (the lossless format that I've settled on), and tagged them in a consistent fashion.

The entire is collection on a Linux server, managed by MediaMonkey on a Windows machine. (I also have exported the files as MP3's for use on iTunes on my Mac.) Slimserver software sits on the Linux box, and this drives the Squeezebox (via gigabit ethernet over Cat 6 wire) in my basement that's connected to the stereo.

I have a laptop running Linux that I use preferentially over the Squeezebox's remote control for easier control of playlists and such while I'm listening.

I must say that I'm now thrilled with the results. My music has never been more accessible, and sounds wonderful. Friends who come over are amazed at the power of this system. And frankly, so am I.

Michael
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